Israeli wave energy project draws interest from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and even Iran
Eco Wave Power officially launches grid-connected demonstration model in Jaffa, plans two more for Los Angeles and Taiwan, commercial scale roll-out in Portugal
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
An Israeli company, Eco Wave Power, whose pioneering ocean wave energy technology has attracted interest from countries with which Israel currently has no diplomatic relations, including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, has formally opened its demonstration project at the Jaffa Port with its significant strategic partner, EDF Renewables Israel.
The technology, designed to use existing infrastructure such as breakwaters, piers, and jetties, is mainly onshore or near shore. The only parts in contact with the water are large floaters, which move with the waves, setting in motion pistons and motors that turn electric generators.
This, according to founder and CEO Inna Braverman, sets the company apart from the vast majority of wave energy projects, which have been built out at sea, at a high cost, and with stationary infrastructure exposed to the punishing might of the waves.
“They have struggled to deploy because of the price and survivability,” she said.
President Isaac Herzog attended the Jaffa Port project’s launch, which was delayed for over a year because Braverman and her partners thought a ceremony inappropriate at the height of a war.
Cutting the ribbon were Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai, Ayalon Vaniche, CEO of EDF Renewables Israel, and Yaron Klein, CEO of Atarim, which manages facilities along the Tel Aviv-Jaffa coast.
Invitees included visitors from Vietnam, the Philippines, China and the US.
With 100 kilowatts of installed capacity, capable of powering 100 homes, this is Israel’s first wave energy project to be connected to the grid. It is intended to demonstrate that the technology (piloted in Gibraltar over several years) works and that the infrastructure doesn’t break down during storms, during which the floaters are raised above the water surface.
Additional 100-kilowatt demonstration projects are planned for ports in Los Angeles and Taiwan.
After the ceremony, Braverman told The Times of Israel that the technology becomes profitable “once it reaches megawatt scale.”
This will happen with what Eco Wave Power believes will be the world’s first commercial-scale wave power project. To be built in Porto, Portugal, the 20-megawatt project will power 20,000 households.
Braverman said she hoped the profitability of the Porto project would open the door to bank finance, the lack of which has been an obstacle to major deployment. Financing options ranged from strategic partnerships to grants and equity, but 80 percent of funding from a bank was needed for a significant commercial rollout.
Another obstacle was regulatory, Braverman said. “It’s a new technology,” she explained. “Many countries want our technology but don’t have the policy, the legislative framework, or the feed-in tariff for wave energy.”
Noting approaches from national and commercial companies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey, Braverman said it was interesting to see how the need for renewable energy technology “has no borders.”
Braverman said Eco Wave Power was 100% environmentally friendly because it was attached to existing structures and not embedded into the sea floor. It was modular, scaleable, the least intermittent renewable energy source, and had 832 times the wind’s kinetic energy.
She added that in Israel, the company had identified enough existing coastal infrastructure (excluding prime real estate areas) to generate 250 megawatts of energy.
Braverman was born in 1986 in a town near Chernobyl, Ukraine, two weeks before the nuclear reactor there exploded. Her mother, a nurse, was able to resuscitate her after she went into cardiac arrest.
This gave her a feeling of purpose in life, she has often said.
She immigrated to Israel as a child and studied Political Science and English Language and Literature at northern Israel’s Haifa University, where she was first exposed to renewable energy.
Without any technical background, she leaped into a predominantly male industry when she co-founded the company in 2011, aged 24, with a Canadian businessman, David Leb.
Since then, she has picked up multiple awards.
At the Jaffa launch on Thursday, Yael Herman of the Energy Ministry’s Office of the Chief Scientist joked, “We only have solar energy in Israel, which is problematic. [The sun] is like a government employee, starting at 8 a.m. and finishing at 3 p.m. ”
She said that generating energy from waves when the sun wasn’t shining could significantly contribute to Israel’s transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
